1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an instrument panel unit easily assembled and mounted to a motor vehicle body.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a narrow space of an instrument panel, there have been installed many electrical elements such as meter units, switch assemblies, navigation units, a. radio set, and control units for such electrical elements. It has been taken a long period of time and much manpower to mount the electrical elements and to provide wiring therefor, which has been resulted in one of factors to prevent the improvement of productivity of motor vehicles.
To solve the aforementioned problems encountered with the conventional motor vehicles, a wire harness device for use in instrument panels, such as illustrated in FIG. 10, has been proposed in Japanese Patent Application No. Heisei 8-121999.
The wire harness device for the instrument panel of FIG. 10 consists of an instrument panel 51, an assembly box 52 which also works as an air duct, a wire harness for instrument panel 53 and a plurality of electrical equipment units 54 (54.sup.1, 54.sub.2 . . . ).
Each electrical equipment unit 54 is provided with a connector which is connected to a wire harness not shown, and on the instrument panel 51 is formed a mounting cavity 56 for each electrical equipment unit 54, and in the wire harness 53, a flat wiring member 57 is provided with receptive connectors 58 for the electrical equipment units.
Further, on a side wall of the assembly box 52 are formed a harness mounting channel 59 and a plurality of connector holders 60, and to the harness mounting channel 59 is positioned and secured the wire harness. 53 for instrument panel, and on each of the connector holders 60 is supported the receptive connector 58.
With this construction, by mounting the electrical equipment unit 54 to each of the mounting cavities 56 of the instrument panel 51, the connectors for being connected with said harness are connected to the receptive connectors 58.
According to the wire harness device for the instrument panel illustrated in FIG. 10, when the electrical equipment units 54.sub.1, 54.sub.2 are mounted to each of the mounting cavities 56 from the front side of the instrument panel 51, the connectors for connecting with the harness are simultaneously connected to the receptive connectors 58, which establishes the connection with the wire harness 53 of the instrument panel to form electrical circuits. Therefore, troublesome works such as installation of wire harnesses in the narrow space and engagement and connection for many connectors can be eliminated, resulting in remarkably improved mountability and workability.
However, when the work of mounting the instrument panel 51 is examined from the side of a motor vehicle manufacturer, movable connectors, that is, the receptive connectors 58, are necessary to connect each of the electrical equipment units 54 (54.sub.1, 54.sub.2). Furthermore, it is required for the manufacturer to equip instrument panel sub-lines in order to mount each of the electrical units 54 (54.sub.1, 54.sub.2, . . . ), therefore, much manpower is still necessary for the manufacturer side.